On the Road Again...

Well, we have two areas of Washington to hit up to finish up our little State Park Mission. This road trip focused on the Southwestern corner of our state. 

 

Day 1:

Millersylvania #75

Willapa Hills Trail #76

Rainbow Falls #77

Lewis and Clark #78

Ike Kinsea #79

Seaquest #80

Day 2:

Cape Disappointment #81

Fort Columbia #82

Battleground #83

Beacon Rock #84 

Discovering big guns is always fun. A lot of history here at the coast. 

Heading back along the Columbia on the Washington side, very scenic. 

Day 3:

Spring Creek Hatchery #85

Maryhill #86

Brooks Memorial #87

Yakima Sportsman #88

Iron Horse-Hyak #89

That light at the end of the tunnel is 2 miles away. 

Well, we are getting closer the end of this mission. 

Mt. Pilchuck

So one of the State Parks on the list is Mt. Pilchuck. The last time I remember hiking/climbing this peak was proabably over 10 years ago, and I did it solo. I also remembered a little bit of snow and not much else. 

Today I enlisted Andy's help knowing that I would need it to get to the cach two miles up the trail, and also to the peak. This is state park #74, but unfortunately we were the first ones to discover the missing stamp that would validate our claim here.

Pyper hiked the first 1.5 miles, which was feat, since it was all uphill. Then  she proceeded to sack out until the summit. At the summit, there is a rock scramble, and then a ladder to where the rebuilt lookout tower sits. The views are absolutely incredible. 

This is the play by play link Andy collected with while we were out on the trail. The pictures are linked to the map and also to our elevation and speed. It's a cool way to see our adventure. Andy will be using the same application while he is on his trail ride this week.

https://www.gaiagps.com/public/Lz3Yt1UbWVmC9aryv1HBbbj3

Pasco-ing

Well, we decided to change up the mode of transportation just a little. We were going to hit up the Tri-cities Geocoin Challenge this year, but this year's event coincided with the heat wave, which brought 111 degrees to Pasco. No thank you; that's when we decided to hit the coast a couple of weeks ago. It's been a little cooler, so no time like the present to try and complete the challenge. We hopped a jet plane, rented a car, and hit the road. This year's challenge was pirate themed with an incredible five piece coin.

It was go, go, go all day long. We bumped into a couple of groups attempting the same mission. Honestly, I wasn't quiet sure we were going to be able to finish with our time contraints of having to catch the last flight out of Pasco at 6pm. But somehow we managed to motivate and squeeze in 30 caches, which is an all time high number for us, and had just a little time to spare. At least we saved ourselves 7 hours of driving to the Tri-cities area and back. So this is the fourth coin we've collected, the first one being the 2012 coin. 

We also managed to slide in Sacagawea State Park while in Pasco for a total of 73 state parks.

Little Garden Gnome

Well the first garden is producing and she loves being in it. Especially with her flowers in full swing. Right now we are in another wave of strawberries, the last of the raspberries, in the middle of zucchini, and the lettuce and kale are still going strong. We are looking forward to our tomatoes and cucumber, which look to be the next crop to rippen. We've already pulled the peas, the spinach, cilantro, and radish that have bolted. We are having fun rolling with the summer season, if only it would give us a little bit of rain...